College Hoops: 20 Random Thoughts & Observations

1 - Why the heck is their no college basketball the next three days? Is someone trying to punish me?

2 - Butler has officially moved into the legit category (which Bulldog fans have been telling me all season) after knocking off Xavier last night. There was a Matt Howard sigting too, as the big man had 19 points and 14 boards.

3 - Look at the national scoring leaders, and you might notice Adrian Oliver averaging a whopping 29 ppg. The former Washington Husky finally became eligible to play for San Jose State this week and lit up North Colorado and San Francisco for 27 and 31 apiece. Not a bad start to the season.

4 - Arizona State should consider picking up their pace. They're 317th in tempo, but 7th in offensive efficiency. Usually, its better for efficient offensive teams to push the pace so they get more opportunities to score and spread the score out. (Plus I hear that Harden guy isn't so bad..)

5 - Congrats to Kansas for finally playing a road game.. it only took half the season.

6 - It should be interesting to see how quickly LSU collapses once conference play starts.

7 - In the good name category, how bout Artsiom Parakhouski of Radford. He's also averaging 14 and 9 per game to go along with the consonants.

8 - Drake owns its home state. The Bulldogs have knocked off Iowa & Iowa State six times in a row now.

9 - IUPUI was really supposed to struggle without George Hill. But the Jaguars are 7-4, with an OT loss to Arizona State and a 3 point road loss at Indiana mixed in. Ron Hunter simply knows what he's doing.

10 - 0-12 Southern University is so bad that they lost to previously winless USC Upstate by 28 points on a neutral court.

11 - Xavier earned a lot of respect by winning the Puerto Rico Tip-Off.. but what we're learning is that most of the teams down there were overrated. Seton Hall has now lost to IUPUI and James Madison. Memphis still hasn't beaten a half-decent team. USC is merely mediocre.

12 - Its amazing that Indiana basketball has fallen so quickly that the Hoosiers lost by 13 to Northeastern at home the other night and nobody even blinks.

13 - After starting 0-6, Wright State has rebounded to win 6 of 7 games. The emergence of junior PG John David Gardner has been the big key. He's been the Raiders top player in the recent run.

14 - If Alex Ruoff didn't miss the Davidson game, WVU would be 10-1 right now and most likely ranked heading into this weekend's big game at Ohio State.

15 - Did Dominic James actually hit a clutch 3 the other night?

16 - Louisville is simply a bad offensive team. Their 133rd offensive effiency rating belies how much this team struggles to simply hit shots.

17 - Last Sunday was supposed to be an epic day of college basketball action, but Duke's romp over Xavier (that was BRUTAL) and Purdue's demolition of Davidson ruined that.

18 - Boston College is off to a solid 10-2 start, but the interesting development is that other guys have stepped up alongside Tyrese Rice. Rice is averaging only 16 ppg compared to 21 ppg last year, but his assists are up, and his efficiency is way up. Four Eagles are scoring in double figures.

19 - What's happened to Jeremy Pargo? His points are down, which isn't a huge deal because the coaches are asking him to be more of a ball-handler instead of a scorer.. but his FG%, FT%, and 3-Pt% are all lower than they've been since his freshman year.

20 - On the flip side of Pargo, you have a player like BYU's Lee Cummard, whose PPG, FG%, and 3-Pt% has risen each season.

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